


Snapshot 6: Fragrant

by drainbamage954 (cats_cradle6766)



Series: Blooming Hearts [8]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Allergies, Cats, Fluff, Garden Shop, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Perfume
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9000988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cats_cradle6766/pseuds/drainbamage954
Summary: Though he may be pretty as the flowers they sell, he may not smell the same.





	

Junmyeon looks sick. "What the fuck are you wearing?" he asks, looking at Sehun and squinting as if the smell of Sehun's poor choice of cologne actually causes his eyes pain as well.

"Pants," Sehun says with a glower at the elder. Shut up, he was trying to be creative in his tactics. Just because the bottle he chose smelled great in the store but, in real life, smells like skunk is totally not his fault. And he didn't really have time for a second shower.

He had hoped that being outside would help to air him out. No such success.

"Did you roll in garbage?" Junmyeon asks, wincing slightly as he draws the collar of his shirt over his nose and flinches.

"Shut up," Sehun snaps and throws a few discarded plant tags at Junmyeon irritably. "I bet some people find me very alluring right now."

"Are they homeless?" Jongdae asks, walking by with his fingers clamped over his nose, adding a lovely nasal twang to his voice.

Sehun decides to glare at him rather that justify that wish a response.

"Please tell me you didn't spend more than five bucks on that stuff," Junmyeon says with a pained expression on his face. "Seriously Sehun. It's a miracle Luhan hasn't found you and hosed you down already. You smell like you died four days ago."

"I do not," Sehun protests. Really, he does not need this right now. Really, not right now.

"I-" Junmyeon looks like he wants to continue but snaps his mouth closed a second later as his eyes widen and he ducks away. Sehun feels ice fill his stomach as he turns around. Minseok is frowning slightly as he looks at the two cashiers and chews his lip.

"Morning," Sehun says and tries to wave without withering into horrible embarrassment. He smells like an old shoe filled with Indian curry.

"Morning," Minseok replies, looking back with a small nod. "Are you outside for the day?"

Sehun watches as Minseok appears to try not to cough at the smell that seems to radiate from him like a bug lamp of nasty. "Yeah," Sehun answers, fiddling with his walkie talkie and wanting to bathe in bleach. "Jongdae and Luhan are taking the inside today."

Minseok nods a bit, shifting his hold on a hanging basket before smiling. "Cool," he says before offering a smile to Junmyeon and wandering over to greenhouse one where Yixing is watering some vegetable planters.

Sehun turns back to flop over the cash counter and moan at Junmyeon, who scrunches up his face and steps back. "Kill me I want to die," Sehun moans.

"That man should get an award for polite kindness," Junmyeon says, looking down at his horribly smelling friend with a small smile hidden amidst his cringes at how horrible he smells. Sehun whimpers and Junmyeon sighs. "Why don't you go to the break room and try to wash up a bit?" Sehun looks up at him and looks pitiful. "There aren't many customers yet and if something happens I can just call Donghae to come help call." Sehun raises his eyebrows. "Plus, with you smelling like a week old carcass, we won't get any customers near this place."

Sehun snorts. "Your kindness astounds me," Sehun grumbles, pushing himself up and flouncing to his feet, throwing a look at Junmyeon before making his way towards the shop and glowering at Lang as she hisses at him and swats, apparently overly offended by his presence as he now smells bad as well as exists.

"Shut up," Sehun snaps at her even as he flinches away from those evil evil claws. "I have enough crap ruining my day I don't need allergies on top of that."

Lang flattens her ears to her head from where she's lounging in a dry birdbath and glares at him.

It takes Sehun twenty minutes of being shirtless in the staff bathroom and scrubbing with soap before he figures that he probably needs a new shirt to avoid smelling disgusting for the day. It had been particularly humiliating when Yifan had walked in to grab some supplies from the closet and stopped and stared at him has he soap lathered all over his front and his shirt draped on the toilet.

Good impressions to make on his boss.

Yifan hadn't said anything, instead giving him a weird look before walking away with a few rolls of paper towels while Sehun tries not to beat his head against the soap dispenser. He emerges from the bathroom, shirt balled up and smelling horrific while he smells vaguely like a hospital and frowning. Someone is bent in over the fridge. "Hey," Sehun says, walking towards them. "Hey, do you know anyone who might have a spare shi-"

Minseok pops his head up from behind the fridge door curiously, a carrot stick poking out of his mouth and eyes expectant and Sehun chokes on his own words. Minseok's eyes widen taking in the messy tangle that Sehun had reduced his hair to in an attempt to remove his shirt and his bare slightly pink chest torso from vigorous watching and either scalding or freezing water that can never settle on a normal 'luke warm' temperature.

"Hi," Minseok says, looking back up at Sehun's horrified face. He makes no indication that Sehun is at all out of the norm, that he's shirtless and looks like he just rolled down a hill. "What did you need?"

 _A funeral_ , says Sehun's brain while he sucks his lower lip so far into his mouth he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can swallow the lower half of his face if he tries.

"I- um," Sehun stutters out, coloring brilliantly and nearly awkwardly pulling his arms around himself to hide his nakedness. However, in many ways, that would just emphasize his nakedness and how awkward he is because of his nakedness and he should probably seem cool at having nakedness because otherwise Minseok may think he's a pansy.

Which, though it's a nice flower, is not a good thing if it's associated with humans.

Minseok is patient, smiling easily as he brings up a hand and takes the carrot stick from his mouth, chewing easily as he watches Sehun and waits.

"I need a new shirt," Sehun finally manages to get out as he looks anywhere but at Minseok. Which, as it turns out, is the advertisement for 'SUPER NOODLES' that is taped to the bulletin board.

Minseok hums as Sehun glances back and fidgets, hand shifting around his balled up shirt. "What was wrong with the one you were wearing?" Minseok asks, tilting his head to the side as he looks down at Sehun's shirt and his eyes flit to Sehun's nakedness and then back to his face. Sehun hopes the amusement in his eyes is good-natured and he doesn't think Sehun is the biggest failure on the planet.

"It- um- there-" Sehun bites his lips before he makes more amazing one word incoherent sentences and huffs slightly. "It smells," he finally says and feels the color on his face burn.

"Really?" Minseok says, stepping from behind the fridge door and letting it close easily as he frowns a little at Sehun and takes a final bite of the carrot. He holds out his hand and Sehun stares at it.

"What?" Sehun asks, looking between the hand and Minseok's expectant face.

"I want to see," Minseok says simply, shrugging.

No. No no no no no no Sehun will not let Minseok burn his nasal passages with this horrible smelling cologne he thought might be a brilliant idea but which is instead a disaster.

"No!" Sehun says quickly, stepping back and hiding his shirt behind his back. "It's really bad you don't want to- um- it's. No, it's okay. You really don't want to."

"No," Minseok says, stepping forward easily with a laugh. "It can't be that bad." Sehun begs to differ.

"Really," Sehun insists, side stepping Minseok and fumbling around a chair. "I'll just- um- go ask Luhan for a sweat shirt or something and-" he trips over the table as Minseok laughs a bit and pauses, hand falling and watching him in amusement. The crawl of embarrassment over his entire body isn't quite as bad as how bad he smelled previously but it's a close call. "You-" Sehun cuts himself off as Minseok waits. "It's fine, never mind." Minseok's eyes widen slightly as Sehun practically flings himself from the break room and to the shop, stumbling over a birdhouse before he nearly pitches face first into the counter as Luhan looks at him in surprise.

"Where the fuck is your shirt?" Luhan demands, looking mostly disapproving of Sehun's lack of clothing. Sehun shoves his horribly smelling shirt into Luhan's face gasping in panic in answer and Luhan yelps before shoving it away and making gagging sounds to the floor. "Jesus H Christ!" Luhan wheezes. "Burn that thing!"

Sehun wheezes to the counter. "Please please please tell me you have a spare sweatshirt," he pleads, pulling his nasty shirt away and looking at Luhan with begging eyes.

Luhan looks down at his pitiful form before frowning. "Go ask Jongin, he's more your size."

"Luhan!" Sehun yelps and nearly stomps his foot. "Jongin is down in perennials!"

"He never wears his shirts anyway, I'm sure he has a spare shoved somewhere in the back," Luhan waves Sehun off easily. "Plus, weren't you bragging about how sexy your body was the other day? This way you get to show off for everyone. I thought you'd be pleased."

Sehun kind of hates his boss right now. "Please," Sehun pleads, dropping his shirt to the floor and clasping his hands together in front of Luhan. "Luhan, really, please just lend me a sweatshirt."

Luhan eyes him, mouth scrunching as he takes in the younger before he sighs. "You're going to stretch this thing out," Luhan grumbles before he drags a gray hooded zipper sweatshirt from under the counter. It's covered in cat hair.

Sehun frowns.

Luhan glares at him. "What?"

"I'm-" Sehun licks over his lips. "I'm allergic to cats."

Luhan's face does something Sehun elects to not clarify at the moment because it will probably just make him feel worse. "Well, you can just go half naked then," Luhan says and makes to withdraw the sweatshirt.

"No!" Sehun yelps, grabbing the sweatshirt and shaking it open so he can pull it on quickly. He sneezed almost instantly as cat hair flies everywhere and makes his nose itch. Luhan looks demonically elated. Sehun sighs as he sneezes again. "It's fine," he says, feeling the itch at his eyes. "Totally fine. Perfect actually. Thanks Luhan."

"Any time Sehunnie," Luhan says, tapping a pen at Sehun and smirking as the younger stoops to grab his shirt from the floor.

Sehun smiles painfully at Luhan before slumping from the shop and back outside, his nose beginning to clog as he sneezes again. Shit.

"Thank Fuck," Junmyeon says as Sehun comes up in Luhan's borrowed sweat shirt, covered in cat hair and eyes itching horribly as the zipper is cold against his skin. "You-" he frowns when he Sehun sneezes violent three times in a row.

"Shut up," Sehun says through his clogged nose, shoving his smelling tee shirt into a bucket inside the cash shed and stomping it down. "Just shut up."

"You know," Junmyeon says, smiling sympathetically at Sehun and offering a small smile. "If you sneeze three times in a row someone is thinking about you."

"You're not helping," Sehun mumbles as he walks back outside and tries to sniff through his nose, mind fuzzing up a bit. It's like the cat hair not only is lodging into his allergies but filling up his brain. Awesome.

"I could laugh at you," Junmyeon points out as Sehun sneezes violently again. "Would you prefer that?"

Sehun glowers. "No," he says, jutting out his lower lip.

Sehun glowers, grabbing a paper towel from behind the window and ripping off a few sheets, blowing his nose and feeling horrid.

It's about five minutes before his eyes begin to water and he's sneezed about seventeen more times. Junmyeon looks a mix between amused and concerned while Donghae keeps making cat sounds at him and laughing. Yixing at least looks sympathetic as he waters the dahlias near the front and keeps flashing looks over at him.

When Sehun is pretty sure his head is so full of snot he's going to over balance, he shuffles off to behind the shed and zips off the jacket, pulling it off so he can try to shake out some of the deadly cat hair and make his current hell stop. The cold air of early June hits his skin and makes him shiver a bit even as he tries to shake out the clothing, leaning away as he tries to avoid all the dust and fur that erupts from the jacket and flies everywhere.

The small snort of laughter has him looking up, face scrunched as he sneezes again before he freezes at the image of Minseok, hauling a cart full of plants, looking back at him and smiling in amusement. "So you found a shirt then?" he asks.

Sehun really really really wants to go bury himself in mulch.

"Yeah," he replies feebly offering a horribly pained smile as Minseok smiles at him.

"That's good," Minseok says cheerfully before turning and tugging his cart of plants away and Sehun is left holding his nasty cat infested sweat shirt limply and feeling horribly embarrassed all over again. He elect to crawl into the cash shed, pulling on the sweat shirt over his now shivering body and putting the hood up over his head as he slumps in a crouch near the back wall and mopes his misery.

Junmyeon looks over from where he's putting up post it notes with the sale details of the week. "Did Justin Bierber dating Selena Gomez just register with you?" he asks and Sehun glowers at him. "Sorry," he says with a not really apologetic smile. "You okay?"

"Die in a fire," Sehun spits at him before sneezing violently and accidentally knocking his head against the wall. "Just- go die in a fire."

"Look at it this way," Junmyeon says, wandering over and patting Sehun awkwardly on the head. "Minseok is being really nice to you about this whole thing. He could be making fun of you mercilessly."

"Like you?" Sehun shoots back, looking up and sniffing around his copious amounts of snot.

"Exactly," Junmyeon says brightly.

Sehun feels only vaguely cheered up.


End file.
